We invited individuals to participate in panel discussions of 3-4 individuals on topics that are of general interest or concern to participants during the 42nd annual meeting of the Association for Biology Laboratory Education (ABLE).
During this Friday, June 25th session each person spends a short period of time (5-7 min.) discussing their take on the topic and open up the session for questions and discussion with participants. These mini sessions are 1-hour in length total. Panel Discussion topics are intended to provide the very valuable opportunity for collegial discussions and networking. Preference was given to topics that explored online or blended approaches to teaching in biology labs and/or issues that pertained to these approaches. Panels on general educational pedagogy, equity and access, workplace environment, or other topics were also considered. Here were some possible topic ideas related to online teaching:
- Hands-on lab activities at home
- Active learning in an online environment
- Course planning: asynchronous vs synchronous components
- Managing instructor workload and burnout
- Best practices in asynchronous environments
- Connecting and Supporting TAs online
- Inclusivity & Accessibility
- Creating and organizing semester-long group projects
- Increasing engagement in asynchronous environments
Sessions will be recorded and posted for all conference registrants to view.
Abstracts
The New Principles of Biology: Access and Inclusion in the Science Lab
Moderators: Hannah Lavendier and Julia Clifton, Labster
Panelists: Mark Mort and Laura Rozzi, University of Kansas
The pandemic helped expose long-standing educational access issues in the sciences. Students with disabilities face barriers to an equitable learning experience, from physical challenges navigating the lab room to vision and hearing impairments that make it hard to follow lectures. Accessible technology can contribute a partial solution, and educational institutions and ed tech companies are working to support learning software that complies with ADA and WCAG 2.1 standards.
Yet equity in access to education demands much more than simple compliance. Learners also have differences in socioeconomic status, culture, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality that must be respected. In this session, Hannah Lavendier, Inside Sales Manager at Labster, will moderate a discussion about using technology to enhance student access and engagement. Panelists Laura Rozzi and Mark Mort, both professors from the University of Kansas, will share how their vision to create an accessible, inclusive, and resilient Principles of Biology course led them to develop a new, fully online version of BIOL 101 and 102 that has been well-received by students and faculty alike.
Exploring the Benefits of Online Labs for On-Campus Teaching
Moderator: Jennifer Van Dommelen, Dalhousie University
Panelists: Isabelle Aube, Donna Pattison, Martin Hicks, Kathy Nolan, Ethell, Vereen
With the move to online teaching and learning in response to COVID-19, online biology labs are no longer a niche endeavour and more of us than ever now have some experience teaching in this mode. As we look forward to a return to campus, how might our online teaching experiences inform our face-to-face teaching? Researchers have investigated the changes in attitudes and strategies of instructors in a variety of disciplines who have returned to face-to-face teaching after having taught online. For example, Kearns (2016) found that instructors became more aware of the potential applications of online technologies, saw less of a distinction between in-class and out-of-class learning activities, and demonstrated an increased focus on how students learn, while Andrews Graham (2019) documented changes in instructors’ communication strategies, instructional practices, and perceived roles in the classroom. This panel discussion will explore the theme of ‘transferable benefits of online teaching’ in the context of laboratory teaching; panelists will share insights and specific examples of how experience with online labs can make our face-to-face labs better.
Alternative Assessments for Online Teaching that are Bulletproof (Cheat-Resistant)
Moderator: Jennifer Klenz, University of British Columbia
Panelist: Lisa McDonnell, UC San Diego and Celeste Leander, University of British Columbia
The worry for faculty AND students is that online classes lead to heavy cheating. Students can collaborate on answers with each other and with homework services like Chegg and Course Hero. What is the solution? Let them work together! One way is to have students create their own exam-type questions covering multiple learning outcomes. Then have them peer-review questions from other groups. A second option is work in class on interpreting a figure then manipulate the data and ask what claims they can or cannot make and have them provide a hypothesis. Using Turnitin insures unique answers for both the created exam questions and data interpretations. A third option is to have them work together to build/make/record something to be graded that cannot be looked up in the amount of time given. A fourth option is to have students collaborate to create placemat-sized posters explaining some course-related content to children in language they understand (see poster session for placemat posters). All these assessments hit high Bloom’s levels plus the students enjoy working together.
Hands-On Lab Activities at Home
Moderator: Alma E. Rodriguez Estrada, Aurora University
Panelists: Kaspar Schwarzenbach, Natalia Hubbs, Michelle Korir
Laboratory activities are essential components of biology teaching and learning. With the sudden and unexpected COVID19 pandemic, faculty members all over the world were in need to switch their course delivery modalities. In many cases, the face-to-face meetings changed to remote, on-line, and/or hybrid instruction. Laboratory sessions possess a unique challenge as, in many cases, students require specialized consumables, reagents, and equipment to properly complete laboratory exercises. In this panel, instructors will discuss a variety of activities and strategies implemented during the last academic year in a variety of upper and lower-level biology courses.
Connecting and Supporting TAs Online: During the Pandemic and Moving Forward
Moderator: Deborah Lichti, University of Delaware
Panelists: Amy Kulesza, Katie Coscia, Frank Castelli, Frank Castelli, Nancy Abney
During the past year, most laboratory courses were taught fully online or hybrid. Many of these laboratories rely on teaching assistants (TAs) for leading and delivering the content. Once everyone went remote, we needed to change how we connected and supported our TAs. The panel will be discussing how we transitioned training and communication to online or hybrid. We will discuss what worked, what didn’t work, and how we would like to continue some of the communications techniques in the future. A first year TA will give insight into her experience as a teaching assistant during the pandemic and describe how she felt communication and support was during the pandemic including interactions with students and TAs with disabilities. Panelists will then share their professional development modules developed for online, both asynchronous and synchronous. These programs were developed before the pandemic but are examples of what could be done as we continue in hybrid or online for TAs. Finally, we will open up the discussion for participants to share their experiences working with TAs during these challenging times and discuss future pathways to continue the communication and support for online courses or implementing techniques once back in person.
Using Synchronous Labs to Build Online Peer Learning Communities and Maintain a Meaningful Laboratory Experience
Moderator: Debra Grantham, Dalhousie University
Panelists: Debbie Fiore, Linda Forrester, Elizabeth Welsh
All laboratory educators were thrown into a similar situation by the COVID-19 pandemic. We were all challenged by the sudden shift away from our in-person active learning, hands-on lab activities and student interactions. The need to quickly switch to new online teaching approaches forced us all to re-examine and re-prioritize our teaching strategies. To help guide us, we sought inspiration from teaching discussions with colleagues, workshops, consultation with course developers, and investigating established online teaching approaches. Converting labs to online resulted in novel approaches that enabled student learning and interaction. Common themes of group work, ability of instructors to easily view student work in progress, use of colour and images in lab exercises, shared Excel sheets, and use of peer review emerged during the online lab experience. After our brief presentations, we would like to hear what has worked well for you in a group discussion, with cameras on please. Aspects of these strategies may be useful for us to continue in future, in-person labs.
Semester-Long Projects
Moderator: Robin Cooper, University of Kentucky
Panelists: Dawn Carter, Katherine Sharp
This discussion is focused on some experiences of semester long course projects. We hope to hear ideas and personal experiences of the participants in this discussion group. We will briefly describe our experiences of semester-long projects from first year level courses to upper level elective courses. At RIT, the first year laboratory courses (150 students per semester) are semester-long projects. We have adapted the Small World Initiative project (antibiotics from soil bacteria ) and have devised and adapted other projects as a lens to teach laboratory techniques and engage our beginning scientists in authentic inquiry. Examples include Daphnia ecotoxicology and Fall tree studies. This past year has been challenging with the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to adapt laboratory courses to include students who are learning online as well as planning for a pivot to online for the entire class. At UK, Jr/Sr level Animal Physiology Course with a lab (120 students per semester) and a neurophysiology lab (Sr level) with 16 students we have focused on a theme this year with the effect of bacterial induced sepsis and to focus in on the direct effect of endotoxin (Lipopolysaccharides, LPS) from gram-negative bacteria. This was approached as authentic scientific inquiry. The novel investigation appeared to stimulate student engagement and curiosity. In the neurophysiology class the project turned into a publication with all students as co-authors. In the animal physiology course, the topic was woven through the various bodily systems from the cell level to the whole body. What students found interesting is how little is known on the direct effects of LPS as compared to the downstream actions of cytokines. To bridge this across kingdoms, the effects of LPS on root growth in plants and sensitivity to subsequent exposure as a defense mechanism.
Active Learning in an Online Environment
Moderator: Jon Moore, Pomona College
Panelists: Sarah Salm, Katy Muzikar, Jessica Goldstein,
The importance of active learning is generally embraced by laboratory pedagogical philosophies. Porting those philosophies to labs in an online environment has been challenging to those of us whose experience is primarily with students in person. Despite these challenges, there have been countless successes and lessons learned. The panelists will share lessons from their experience in online labs on physiology, behavior, ecology, genetics, cell biology, biochemistry, and microbiology and then open up discussion to the experiences and questions of the attendees. Themes from the panelists’ experiences include the building of community, the social aspects of lab, the maintenance of a student-centered environment, and, most importantly, how to use the lessons we learned from this past year’s forced online experience to better our future, in-person labs.
Proposal Details
Proposals to participate and/or lead Panel Discussions were extended to March 1, 2021, so are now closed. Notification of acceptance were sent shortly thereafter, and titles and abstracts of accepted sessions will be posted here as soon as possible after that.
Publication Information
Following the conference, lead moderators of panel discussions are expected to submit an extended abstract (up to 2 pages with tables and/or figures) for inclusion in our annual Publication. Please see samples of Advances in Biology Laboratory Education (formerly Tested Studies in Laboratory Teaching). Please contact the editor with any questions.
In addition to the peer review screening during the selection of workshops, two other peer review stages give the presenter useful feedback before publication:
- a short session evaluation is solicited from the approximately 20 participants at the end of the sessions;
- the publication editors review the chapter and provide final suggestions.